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The Madeleine McCann Disappearance

The subject of what have been dubbed elsewhere 'zombie facts' came up here recently: statements that go and on being repeated from source to source (including this thread) despite having been shown to be either untrue or unsubstantiated speculation.

I am almost positive that I heard or read that the McCanns had either split up or divorced, but on checking, I find this is untrue.

Is this simply a false memory of mine (some other high-profile couple?), or a more widespread misapprehension?
 
Just on a related theme. some time ago I posted here with what I hope were a few tactfully and respectfully considered opinions on how the British class system might have impacted on this case and kept in in the public eye for so long. (That the McCanns didn't have to fight too hard to maintain press interest and awareness as they're from the same social stratum that contains, for instance, senior journalists in national media and newspapers: they'd move in the same income bracket and social circles, are likely to have been to university alongside people who today will hold down senior journalist jobs for BBC and ITV or work for national papers, they'd live in the same districts of town, they'd perhaps shop at Waitrose rather than Spar, their children would be privately educated at the same schools... they'd have avenues and networks not open to parents of a missing kid on a council estate).

I got to read the Daily Mail earlier. It leads on the really sad, tragic, thing about the multiple stabbing murder in Nottingham. (Is this Fortean in itself? As the temperature rises and even nights are hot, does this push people over the edge?)

The Mail gives this tragedy the front page and the reporting spills over into six pages inside. It stresses that the murdered students were from good respectable families in professional households from nice areas and had glittering lives ahead of them which have cruelly been taken away. This is of course true. Absolutely so.

But I still wondered if instead of socially upscale university students, how the papers might have covered it if the murdered young people were, for instance, unemployed street kids on a council estate, people with no prospects or in dead-end jobs. I'm getting this might have merited two or three paragraphs on page seven and nothing tomorrow, with an inference they'd somehow brought it on their own heads and a stock photograph of a rundown street on a council estate. In fact... I don't need to guess. There was a similar murder in Stoke- on- Trent at the same time; Sunday 11th June; two kids of seven and eleven were stabbed to death, possibly by their mother. (Ethan and Elizabeth John, brother and sister). Now the area where this happened is socially deprived, the average house price appears to be £95,000, and the John family were mixed-race. Compared to the Nottingham murders, press coverage is practically zero and the implications, even in such BBC coverage as there has been, is "well, only to be expected, really, unstable people in a rented property in a sink postcode, can't say we're surprised". .

So the same unspoken social class thing is applying again: the Nottingham murders are exponentially more important to the press because it happened to People Like Us, who could be our friends and neighbours, in fact it might even have happened to us....
 
Well, yes, but it does seem that practically ALL young people who die tragically are reported as being 'stars, smile as big as ...(insert own description)' lighting up a room by being in it, lively, great future ahead, etc etc. Even the scallies who die crashing a stolen car.

And I am sure, to their families, they are all this. A tragic death is a tragic death, whoever it happens to. But reporting is biased and a lot of the mileage for the DM in the Nottingham tragedy appears to be in reporting it as a 'terror related' attack. Presumably because the protag was black? So they can squeeze a lot more mileage out of it than out of an awful domestic situation in Stoke.
 
AgProv said:
But I still wondered if instead of socially upscale university students, how the papers might have covered it if the murdered young people were, for instance, unemployed street kids on a council estate, people with no prospects or in dead-end jobs.
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I suppose it might also get more coverage because there are people with high social status who speak up for them - eg the Vice Chancellor at the university, who has to say something according to accepted standards of behaviour when such a thing happens.
Whereas a person in an ordinary job doesn't really have connections with the kind of people that make Official Statements.
(I am inclined to agree with you. I kind of think the way the reporting happens the natural outcome of how social structures work. Rather than conspiracy. But maybe that's different to the seemingly more deliberate ploys of the Mccanns leveraging high up support??)
 
I worked for the Nottingham Arena on night shift; often when I left work at 6 am, there were scantily-clad students and 'youths' - still half-drunk, waiting for the first bus home. This was 'the night time economy' in action. They'd been out enjoying themselves overnight.
I suspect that if the victims of this horrific, random attack had been black, then the media would be questioning what they were doing in the city in the early morning. :(
I think the hardest thing for the families in cases such as these is trying to mourn, to process the actual shocking incident, while suddenly being brought into the spotlight, being door-stepped by the press and so on. Regardless of race or class, it's this sudden exposure that I feel real sadness for. They are suddenly expected to make public statements while they're trying to take in the horror.
People grieve differently - I myself feel deeply when I lose a loved-one but, by nature, don't really demonstrate my deep feelings. So, on one hand, the McCann's were expected to be more emotional but didn't live 'up to expectation'. On the other, they had gone from an 'ordinary' family holiday parents to press-hounded victims of an awful tragedy involving a young female child. I admit, they didn't live up to the standard 'one parent in a mess of tears, the other being strong for both', but grief is no respecter of expected standards.
 
It is certainly true that status, perceived respectability, ethnicity, and conventional attractiveness all play a major part in whether the news story of an abduction or murder "has legs".

Part of this is that media outlets aim their coverage at a particular demographic. They divide the world into "people like us" and "people not like us.

This is much like the ancient Greeks, who were constantly at war with each other, but divided the world into "Greeks" and "all the rest".

Some might draw a comparison with modern America where the word "American" (often prefaced with African/Irish/Italian, etc.) is not just factually descriptive, but carries connotations of special status.

Part of it these days is that we now live in a self-absorbed society. Most people's preferred pronouns seem to be I and me.

The coverage of the recent killings in Nottingham has been full of people saying, "It could have been me," and, "I feel so sad/shocked/afraid."

There has been a lot more spurious self-identification with the handsome young sportsman/student, and the beautiful young medical student than the much older school caretaker who also died.

A friend recently posted that he had almost got caught up in an armed robbery. Turns out he was merely in the same village at the time, and was not in any sense involved or at risk, and had not been at the scene moments before. He was just shoe horning himself into the centre of a narrative.

Madeleine McCann was a pretty young white girl from a "good background". Her parents are successful, middle class professionals. This earned them the initial attention from the media. Middle England could identify with the aspirational lifestyle, the holiday abroad, and the sudden loss of a beautiful child.

I suspect that if a black child from a poor family had gone missing in Skegness, we would have heard much less about it.

The McCanns' unusual behaviour and manner generated further interest, and their arrest at the time prompted a lot of us to say, "I told you so."

Even though they were released and declared not to be under suspicion, the public interest remains. All of us would have liked to see Madeleine found alive and well, but many people would quite enjoy seeing the "smug" parents get some sort of comeuppance.

I remember the ridiculous outpouring of national grief (vicarious or even recreational grief) and sentimentality over the sad deaths of Holly and Jessica in Soham. Again, two attractive white girls. They could have been any Daily Mail reader's daughters or granddaughters.

The shooting of Charlene and Letisha (2 working class black girls) in Birmingham 5 months later did not provoke a national outpouring of grief. Instead, the media narrative was mainly about criminality and gang violence in the black community.
 
Mikefule said:
I remember the ridiculous outpouring of national grief (vicarious or even recreational grief) and sentimentality over the sad deaths of Holly and Jessica in Soham. Again, two attractive white girls. They could have been any Daily Mail reader's daughters or granddaughters.

The shooting of Charlene and Letisha (2 working class black girls) in Birmingham 5 months later did not provoke a national outpouring of grief. Instead, the media narrative was mainly about criminality and gang violence in the black community.
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To be fair, the media narrative was about gang violence in the black community because that is what caused Charlene and Letisha's deaths. Someone in a rival gang shot at them with a submachine gun, they probably didn't give a hoot who they were, only that they thought they were associated with a rival gang. Perhaps the media narrative was constructive if it brought to light that such things happen in our cities (and what socieety might do about it).

Whereas Holly and Jessica were children specifically targeted by a paedophile who was prepared to murder them afterwards. Which is something that tends to get people quite riled up as it involves small children and the most vilified kind of criminal in our culture. Perhaps significantly - in a small town where you'd hope your children would be safe. So I'm not sure it would have mattered what skin colour the children had (though small town England tends to be quite white).

Maybe in these two cases the causes of their deaths and the location of the crimes impacts the reporting a lot - more than any perceived racism?

A question - I'm not quite sure what you want out of the media if you say the reaction to the latter was 'ridiculous' but (maybe you imply) the reaction to the former was insufficiently grief-stricken? Or am I misreading your comment, do you seem to be implying there is a better way the media should respond?
 
The problem for anyone reporting on these sorts of incidents is that no one knows what anyone's future holds. A young person with a good academic/sporting background probably has more potential than an elderly caretaker so makes more copy even though it is no less of a tragedy. Anyone half way famous will of course have the "glittering career cut cruelly short." line trotted out.

If I get blown away by a nutter this afternoon I won't make good copy. I'm retired and don't involve myself in any high profile roles in any organisations but I'm not old enough to be the "poor feeble old pensioner." I'd probably rate, name age, retired Librarian; if that.

There is also as has been pointed out some bias based on class, race, profession, etc. which shouldn't really be there in the reporting and certainly shouldn't affect any investigation however it's easy to see how the police may have less sympathy for some habitually violent criminal who gets himself shot than some innocent bystander, and it must be difficult to overcome.

What would the press reaction have been if Harold Shipman had been hit by a bus in his late thirties?

Aside from the fact that statistically children will have more potential (for good or bad) than older people I take all that sort of copy with a large pinch of salt. Someone has been killed/abducted/abused, not a good thing.
 
Eponastill said:
A question - I'm not quite sure what you want out of the media if you say the reaction to the latter was 'ridiculous' but (maybe you imply) the reaction to the former was insufficiently grief-stricken? Or am I misreading your comment, do you seem to be implying there is a better way the media should respond?
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I think you may have misunderstood the context of my comment.

The "ridiculous" vicarious or even recreational grieving, the "grief tourism" I had in mind was the behaviour of the complete strangers who drove long distances to display their emotions at the "shrine" of the school gates.

Similarly, when the Madeleine McCann story was new, here in Nottingham, we had walls covered with graffiti scrawled in marker pen saying, "We love you, Maddy," and similar meaningless self indulgent nonsense.

Many people seem to have lost the ability to acknowledge that an individual case is sad without somehow making it all about their own display of "grief".

Sad sudden deaths happen all over the world, every day. Being grown up is about having a sense of perspective. An over the top reaction to a death of someone you never knew is a particularly unpleasant form of "virtue signalling ".

I married someone who was widowed young with 2 small boys to bring up. That is grief. Losing your own child is grief.

The proportionate response to the sad deaths of someone you had never heard of when they are alive is to feel that it is sad, maybe even comment on how sad it is, then move on.
 
If only Portuguese police had acted in this manner against the McCanns.

AN Irish woman has been arrested in Majorca on suspicion of abandoning her child during a holiday.

The 45-year-old was held at a hotel on the east of the island after allegedly leaving her five-year-old daughter alone to go drinking.

Police said the little girl had to be cared for by other tourists. It is claimed she continued drinking despite hotel staff stopping serving her alcohol by going to a nearby supermarket to get alcohol.

A spokesman for Spain’s National Police, which made the arrest and was able to reunite the child with her father who travelled to Majorca from Ireland after being informed of the detention, said: “We have arrested an Irish woman aged 45 who was on holiday in Majorca for a crime of child abandonment.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41174806.html
 
Also, to be fair, Madeleine disappeared. It's the 'what the hell happened?' that helps to keep the case alive. People still talk about and are interested in the case of Asha Degree (poor and black) who disappeared. It's the mystery rather than the background that keeps the case open and discussed.
 
Portuguese police apologise to Madeleine McCann's parents https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67229219

‘In September 2007, four months after Madeleine vanished, Kate and Gerry McCann were made "arguidos" - or suspects - in the Portuguese investigation. Both were questioned by detectives, who believed they had staged an abduction and concealed Madeleine's body.

Mrs McCann said she was offered a deal to admit covering up her daughter's death in exchange for a shorter sentence.

The couple's arguido status was lifted in 2008 but they remained under suspicion in Portugal for years.

Goncalo Amaral, the senior detective who led the case, was later removed from the investigation but went on to write a book accusing the McCanns of being involved in their daughter's disappearance. He said he was defending his professional reputation.

The McCann's libel case against the former detective over the claims he made about them in his book was thrown out by the Portuguese supreme court. The couple appealed to the European Court of Human Rights but lost that challenge in September 2022.’

They’ve been forced to apologise. The detective believed what a lot of people do. Look how they didn’t get anywhere with their libel claim.
 
I just don't get it.
It's standard operating procedure in a crime such as a killing or child abduction that the nearest relations automatically enter the top suspect list. Usually the police interrogate them then either drop them as suspects or keep them under observation.
So ... the McCanns get an apology for the police maintaining standard procedure?
Lost the libel case. Lost the appeal in the ECHR.
What actual hold do they have over the authorities now?
 
Stormkhan said:
I just don't get it.
It's standard operating procedure in a crime such as a killing or child abduction that the nearest relations automatically enter the top suspect list. Usually the police interrogate them then either drop them as suspects or keep them under observation.
So ... the McCanns get an apology for the police maintaining standard procedure?
Lost the libel case. Lost the appeal in the ECHR.
What actual hold do they have over the authorities now?
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I think they realise they handled it poorly and are viewed as having acted unprofessionally.

Acting unprofessionally has potentially damaging consequences for an institution which relies on voluntary co-operation at times.

Being high on the suspect list and being told you are on that list while a 'reduced sentence' is dangled in front of you as an incentive to confess to having caused the death of your own daughter despite a lack of evidence that you actually did—they are two very different things.
 
MorningAngel said:
The detective believed what a lot of people do. Look how they didn’t get anywhere with their libel claim.
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In my view this is unfair.

The McCanns argued that Amaral's statements had damaged their chance of a fair legal hearing.

The judge's ruling was that they had not—because 'the Portuguese police' had already damaged it by naming them as suspects.

Compare:

"You kicked my dog to death!"

"No, my brother kicked him to death; I started kicking its corpse after it had already expired."

Not guilty!

The other approach was that the Portuguese authorities had breached their right to privacy.

This was rejected on the grounds that opened themselves to public curiosity when they had participated in a documentary and courted publicity for the case.

Compare:

"I took some naked pictures of this woman in the shower and posted them online, but she'd already done some naked modelling before, so it was pretty much fair as she didn't have any privacy left to violate."

Not guilty!

Both legally nice distinctions that don't affect the moral situation much. Losing the libel case doesn't make them 'wrong' except on narrow points of law.
 
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